Read the recent New York Times article, "Technology in Future faces Questions on Value..." (see attachment below). Come to class prepared to concisely summarize the arguments made in the article. We will do this in groups using concept mapping software. In addition to summarizing his arguments, be prepared to contribute any response you might have to his argument. Completed concept maps were posted to the Concept Maps page in the course website.

Further exploration...
If you enjoyed our class discussion about this article, you might enjoy reading further about it, perhaps as part of your final project. Here is a place to start. I have written further about the way that our dominant mode of thinking is technical, and the effect of that kind of thinking is to reduce education to a production task. Thus the real threat to what I see as the fundamentally human character of education is from technical thinking (as embodied in legislation like No Child Left Behind) and not from technical objects like computers being used in schools. Here are links to my articles.

• Where are we going as we leave no child behind? La technique and Postman, Papert, and Palmer
• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three